Editorial: Dangerous dolls, tainted toys

Monday

Aug 27, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 27, 2007 at 8:34 AM

Kids hoping to find Thomas the Tank Engine, Dora the Explorer, Big Bird or SpongeBob Squarepants under the tree might be disappointed this Christmas. Millions of toys featuring these and other cartoon characters have been recalled because they contain lead paint or present other child-safety hazards.

Kids hoping to find Thomas the Tank Engine, Dora the Explorer, Big Bird or SpongeBob Squarepants under the tree might be disappointed this Christmas. Millions of toys featuring these and other cartoon characters have been recalled because they contain lead paint or present other child-safety hazards.

Parents are justifiably concerned - and angered - by this summer's spate of recalls. “I'd like to go out and purchase the things I want without, down the road, having to look back and think I poisoned my child,” said Michelle Wagner of Peoria, mother of four young boys. “It makes me frustrated as a consumer. I can't trust where they're coming from is safe.”

Where they're coming from, of course, is China. And it's almost comical that America's long-overdue moment of reckoning with one of its largest trade partners is coming in the form of “Giggle Grabber Soccer Elmo.”

China is America's foremost supplier of low-cost products, from toys to T-shirts to socket wrenches. Last year the U.S. trade deficit with China hit a record $233 billion; this year the Commerce Department expects that number to grow. Already, about 80 percent of all toys sold here are stamped with this all-too-familiar lettering: “MADE IN CHINA.”

For years we've been told that this flood of imports is healthy - vital, even - to our nation's bottom line. In some ways, it is: U.S. consumers have unprecedented access to cheaply made goods, and many U.S. companies have found that shifting production to China allows them to remain profitable and, thus, retain certain jobs here, while expanding their markets overseas.

Nonetheless, Americans need the assurance that products made abroad are as safe as those manufactured in the U.S. This year has shown otherwise.

Chinese-made toothpaste, pet food, fish and cough syrup are among dozens of products found tainted, poisoned or otherwise unsafe. The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recently reported that 60 percent of all the recalls it has mandated in 2007 were of products made in China.

Clearly, U.S. trade representatives, Congress and the Food and Drug Administration need to have a word with the Chinese, who have been less than receptive to calls for more stringent product-safety protocol. In fact, after the string of toy recalls, China sought to point the finger elsewhere, claiming the toy industry's standards were too high. (In a particularly petty act, it also alleged that U.S. soybean exports contained “poisonous weeds and dirt.”)

“We can't wait any longer for China to crack down on its lax safety standards. This needs to stop now before more children and more families are put at risk,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who's urging U.S. companies to submit to third-party inspections of Chinese-manufactured toys. Durbin also is asking Congress to expand the CPSC's resources and regulatory power, which is a fine idea.

Mattel, meanwhile, has announced it will start testing toys made overseas, and Wal-Mart, which controls one-third of the U.S. toy market, will ask foreign suppliers to prove their products are safe. Other toy companies and retailers - and China, too - had best do this and more to reassure angry parents, and soon. It's in their self-interest to do so.

No form of homegrown protectionism is more damning than consumers' utter unwillingness to buy your products.

Of course, rigorously testing Chinese-made goods - and/or more stringently monitoring assembly lines in advance - will ultimately hike their cost. That's a trade-off Americans - who've gotten used to low, low prices for toys and other goods - must be prepared to make.